Most of us (especially those working in close contact with development teams) are generally tasked with multiple roles and responsibilities – the most common combination being that of a database developer and a database administrator. In order to fulfill both responsibilities, I generally have both the query editor and the object explorer open for any server that I am connected to.

In some cases though, I connect to a server to execute a query or two and then find my self in need to access the object explorer.  In such cases, I use a neat functionality hidden in the pop-up menu of the query editor, which I thought would benefit all this week. So, here are the steps.

Assume that you are working in the SSMS query editor window. 1. Right-click anywhere in the white space 2. Click on “Open Server in Object Explorer”

You can see that the Object Explorer is now up.

There is no need to explicitly go to the Object Explorer and use the “Connect” buttons. Alternatively, you can also use the keyboard shortcut Alt + F8.

Why would you want to use the Object Explorer only when required?

There’s a reason why I don’t prefer to launch object explorer by default for servers I don’t work with regularly – for every feature of the SSMS that one uses, an additional connection is opened with the SQL Server (Read more about this here: http://bit.ly/XE6fZh).

Until we meet next time,

Be courteous. Drive responsibly.